But again she was thinking of this, magnificently romantic opportunity, if only the right man had been kneeling there beside her. Then it might have been worth while playing the heroine in distress.
But now it was not worth while being anything except herself. Wiles, arts, affected simplicity — these were not worth the effort with the private secretary of the young man she had meant to win.
Watching her exquisite and flower-like face, he saw the lovely lips move.
“What beastly rotten luck P’ she murmured, closing her blue eyes.
And he supposed she meant the accident, not himself.
“It is rotten luck,” he said gently. “I think I had better — carry you home — in my arms—”
“You couldn’t. I weigh a hundred and! thirty-five.”
“Is it far?”
“Too far for you to carry me.... If I lie here a while perhaps I could sit my horse.... I don’t know.... Oh, what a m-miserable thing to happen to me at — at such a time!”
Under the thick, dark lashes resting on her cheeks two tears glistened in the sunlight; but they dried there. They were tears of vexation because of the stupidity of the wrong man.
He turned, picked up her shooting boot, examined it; walked over to where his gun lay, and looked at the barrels. Then, very gravely, he came back to where she was lying.
“Are you perfectly sure,” he asked quietly, “that I had nothing to do with your injury?”
She opened one eye and looked at him. But hers was a generous mind. And this young man appeared to be seriously unhappy over her plight.
“No,” she said, “you had nothing to do with my injury.”
“I did not, by any awkward chance, hit you when I fell into this pit?”
“No.”
“Nor my gun, either?”
“No.”
“Then,” he said, her boot in his hand, “what is this mark, full of red gun-oil, denting the instep of your shooting boot?”
She considered him in silence.
“You don’t use red gun-oil — do you?” he insisted.
She said nothing.
“But I do,” he added.
After a moment she turned her head on its side, resting her cheek on her shoulder.
“A thoroughbred,” he said calmly. “Perhaps I have broken your ankle.... But you wish to spare me the pain and mortification of knowing it.”
She made no comment.
“You ought to have turned your gun loose on me — both barrels,” he muttered. “Such clumsiness and stupidity as mine amount to crimes. Good Lord! What have I done?”
She smiled: he could see the delicately rounded contour of her cheek curving.
“I’m sorry you are so clever,” she whispered.
“Clever!”
“Clever enough to find me out. Because I certainly should not have distressed you by admitting that you had hurt me.”
When again she opened her eyes she found him on his knees beside her in the sand; and she lay looking at him very quietly for a while. Then a slight flush tinted the whiteness of her cheeks.
“Mr. Gay,” she said, “you must not feel so unhappy about an accident which you could not avoid.”
“Never,” he said slowly, “have I felt as utterly wretched as I do at this moment. For all the world and every bally thing in it, I would not have done this to you!”
“But I am very sure of that, Mr. Gay; so let us not think any more about it—”
“I can’t help it! I feel like a — a murderer — a striker down of something lovely and ipnocent and helpless—”
“I am not helpless and — and not very innocent—”
“Yes, you are!” he said excitedly. “I feel like a slayer of something gentle and beautiful and—”
“But you haven’t slain me,” she returned, smiling at his earnestness. “Why do you exaggerate such a—”
“I don’t exaggerate! It’s — it’s horrible — that’s what it is to me — simply horrible — what I have done — to such a — thoroughbred girl as you—”
“It was not your fault—”
“Every generous and noble sentiment you utter,” he said, “makes my stupidity the more — the more criminal!”
“Mr. Gay,” she protested, with the faintest of smiles curving her lips, “I am afraid you have an infinite capacity for making yourself unhappy.”
“I really haven’t,” he replied honestly, “but somehow — to do such a thing to you — makes me immeasurably m-m-miserable—”
“You mustn’t feel it so deeply—”
“Deeply!” He laughed a hollow laugh. He was only twenty-two. And the girl was very beautiful. Or, to be scientifically accurate, she was very beautiful to him.
What it was that hit him so hard — her beauty, distress, clean shooting, pluck, thoroughbred philosophy, sweet consideration of his own wretched feelings, or whether it was a combination of all these — the deadliest combination he had ever encountered — he did not stop to consider.
One thing he knew: he had never before beheld such a girl. And in the lives of all men, once, there comes such a moment as was now coming upon him.
“How can you lie there smiling at me,” he asked in a low, unsteady voice, “when perhaps I have crippled you for life?”
“How perfectly absurd!”
“It is not absurd. That exquisitely delicate ankle — that small-boned, perfectly arched—”
“I am built like a horse!” she exclaimed, laughing the gay laugh of perfect health.
“Yes, a thoroughbred horse—”
“No, a draught horse—” She laughed again with a sudden sparkle of perverse recklessness — for a simile had flashed into her mind. “A draught horse, Mr. Gay,” she repeated, “the kind that pulls beer wagons.”
“What?”
She said with calm audacity:
“You’ve heard of beer on draught, haven’t you? Well, that’s why they call them draught horses. And that’s why I’m built like one. Besides,” she added, her perverse humour exciting her to kick over the card castle she had been so patiently erecting for months, “I live at the bungalow, and I’m as sturdy as one of my own brewery horses, and my name is Edna Ritter. And sometimes I drink a glass of my own beer.”
His fascinated gaze remained fixed on hers.
“So,” she added, with a last figurative kick at the card castle, “you may tell your employer, Mr. Clifton, that you found Edna Ritter, brewer, shooting doves on this disputed territory — and you may inform him how very properly and thoroughly you punished her for trespassing.”
After a silence he said, looking into the blue eyes brilliant with humour, mischief, and pain:
“So you are Edna Ritter!”
“Brewers of beers,” she added. “Don’t forget that.”
He remained silent.
She continued to watch his expression, dropped her curly head back on her arms, still watching him from under pretty, insolent lids.
“As for the land,” she added after a moment, “he may have it if he wishes — your employer, Mr. Clifton.”
“Why?” asked Clifton simply.
“Why? Because he wants it.”
“Do you want it, too?”
For a second her slightly; flushed and dainty features became beautiful.
“I do not permit myself to desire what others want,” she said very quietly. “Mr. Clifton is welcome to this land. Tell him so.” And she turned her head, resting her cheek on her left shoulder once more.
After a long silence she lifted her head, found him still kneeling beside her, smiled.
“Are you still doing penance, Mr. Gay? How silly! Go to your pit, get what shooting is left, then when the morning flight is over bring your horse and mine — I will tell you where to find my horse. Then — if you have leisure to help me — I can manage somehow to get back to the bungalow, I suppose.”
He made no response; she considered him at intervals, even ventured to study him furtively.
And once an odd thought flashed into her mind — what a pity he was not young Clifton! — for he looked the part.
But — all that was ended now. A disgust for it all had seized her when she had kicked over the castle of cards in that unconsidered moment of capricious and perverse humour.
Suddenly — and she knew not why — that sort of ambition had been totally extinguished in her. It had been for her a sort of game; the ardour of the chase, the skill, the audacity of the quest had amused her for a while. But — even a best-seller ends by surfeiting the intelligence and starving the imagination.
Now, all at once, she realized that she had outgrown childish things — outgrown the impulse toward romance, and no longer desired its fulfilment. And as she lay there, idly speculating and looking at him, she wondered what form her energy would now take — what newer and more interesting channel it might enter — whither lead her restless, ardent, youthful mind and spirit.
For in the brewery it might not rest contented to soar above the sanitary vats or hover eternally above the germ-proof bottling plant.
Then her vague and speculative thoughts clustered about and centered upon the young man on one knee beside her.
It did seem rather odd that he should be perhaps the physical embodiment of what her childish and ardent fancy had hoped for and desired in young Clifton. For, to the splendour of social rank, she had all by herself naïvely added a personal perfection entirely satisfactory to a young girl’s dream.
And it did seem odd that this young man should, in a measure, fulfil that part of her ideal.
For there was no doubt in her mind now that he was good to gaze upon — and that he had qualities — gentleness, good breeding, and very sweet manners to a girl alone with him in a shooting pit.
She glanced at him, then at his dog. Her own dog had curled up at her shoulder. She lay back and pillowed her head on his silky flank.
“Our dogs no longer harbour ill will,” she said with a friendly smile, “so why should you think I bear you malice? I don’t. I never did. And never shall. Please do not look so terribly dejected. For after all you don’t know me well enough to be as unhappy as that.”
“Are you still in pain?”
“A little,” she confessed honestly. “Why don’t you go back to your pit and shoot doves, like a sensible boy?”
“If I did I’d feel more like shooting my bally head off!”
“Mr. Gay! Why do you take it so personally — so intimately — to heart?”
“Oh, you don’t know what I feel — to see you suffering — you, of all women in the world — lying here — struck down my me!”
“What! Why — what a perfectly extraordinary thing to say—”
“Extraordinary! Why is it extraordinary? If I had injured the Queen of Sheba I could be philosophical about it. B-but I can’t be philosophical about you!”
“Why should seeing me in some slight discomfort deject you more deeply than seeing any other girl — person — or the Queen of S-Sheba — s-suffering—”
“It does! That is all I know.”
“Why should it?”
He was silent.
“Why?” she repeated — already a little uncertain why she should repeat the question.
“Because,” he broke out vehemently, “I never before saw such a girl as you — and never shall — again — as long as I — live — if I lived for s-several million years—”
“That’s a — a c-c-curious thing to say — to think—” Her breath seemed to fail her without reason; she took a long and steady one. “It’s very chivalrous — and gallant — to make amends to me — so delight — so — with such—”
“I — never supposed — that — it were possible — in a few minutes — for a man to — to—” But he got no further.
She had turned her head to rest it again in the hollow of her arm; and she began to be surprised and somewhat disconcerted at the irregular proceedings of her own pulses.
For there was something unusual the matter with this young man — with them both — and something had been the matter for some time. She seemed to realize that. Perhaps, with her, it was only her ankle.
She remained silent for a long while. He stretched himself out, presently, pillowing his own head on the red-ticked dog. And they lay there quietly, thinking about each other with considerable amazement.
The sun hung well above the plain; its light gilded the edges of her clustering hair in a most charming and disturbing fashion.
Long since the last flight of laggard doves had driven past, far above them. The dogs looked up into the sky in tragical silence, sighed, and settled down to the inevitable.
At last he rose, came over and knelt beside her, a curious certainty in his heart and a still stranger peace within it: and she turned her head and looked up into his face with the tranquillity of a fearless child.
There seemed to be nothing questioning in his eyes or in hers — nothing even of doubt, only confidence, and a confused sort of comprehension, which delicately flushed her cheeks and deepened the sunburn on his.
“Where is your horse?” he asked.
She told him.
“I won’t be long away from you,” he said.
She nodded.
He did not remain away very long; and when he returned leading the two horses, he found her sitting up waiting for him, with that faint smile on her face which had started the whole amazing business.
“Put both arms around my neck,” he said, bending down over her.
She looked away from him for a moment, and the smile faded; then she slowly complied with his request.
So he carried her to her saddle, and when she was comfortably installed there, he gathered up the odds and ends, buckled and made fast everything, snapped both dogs to heel, whistled in his own horse, and, one arm passed around the cantle of her saddle, walked slowly forward beside her stirrup. And it seemed to him that all the treasures of the world lay there within the half-circle of his sheltering arm.
Neither said anything; the plain was wide from the shooting-pits to the Ritter bungalow, and the sandy miles were traversed in silence save for the clatter of flushed doves rising before them with a flash of the four white feathers, the creak of leather, and the soft tread of the horses over dead grass.
High hawks circled over them: the black vultures soared higher still, wheeling motes floating in the uttermost blue vault. And all around them stretched a sunlit world, very perfect and very still, very wonderful — singula quid referam?
Toward afternoon they came in sight of the noble live oak forest which surrounded the bungalow. A little branch, running noiselessly and crystal clear over white sands, crossed their path. Here they halted; horses and dogs drank deep; a cardinal bird sang.
After a few moments, pensive and absent-eyed, she turned slightly in her saddle and looked down at him. And, for no particular reason, he took her narrow hand in his. And she left it there — probably noticing what he was doing — possibly not.
“I don’t know why this morning I told you I was somebody else: I suppose you know that I am Billy Clifton,” he said.
“I — did not know it. But — it does not surprise me.”
“why?”
“You could not be anybody else, because you are — what I always believed him — to be.”
“What did you believe him to be?”
“What I think you are.”
“And what is that?”
A ghost of a smile touched her lips:
“Of us two — here together — I think that you are the better man. And that is what I always thought.” He did not smile.
“You are the better man,” he said.... “I don’t know why you endure me!”
He drew her hand close against his lips; then very gravely he looked up at her.
“I don’t suppose any other girl in the whole world would understand me,” he said.
“I — suppose not,” she murmured.
“But yo
u do — dear?”
“Yes.” Her lips scarcely moved. She looked up into the dazzling blue, then, gravely, down at him.
He said: “You understand that I am in love with you? Do you understand it, dear?”
“Yes.... I understand it.”
He drew a deep, unsteady breath.
“There is your house. Will you ever ask me there — after what I have just said to you?”
She made no answer. And after he had waited a long while he climbed into his own saddle, and their horses splashed across the shallow water.
Among the giant oaks she drew bridle.
“Come no further,” she whispered as he rode up beside her.
“Is that my answer?”
Her head drooped; she sat absently playing with her bridle for a few moments. Then the lowered eyes were slowly lifted to him, all starry with inquiry.
“You tell me,” she said, “that you — care for me?”
“Yes.”
“You say also that of us two I am the better man?”
“Yes.”
“If that is true you could not make me care for you.... You never can make me.”
He bit his lip in silence.
“A man is what he thinks he is. So—” she added under her breath, “please think that you are the better man.... And that will win me.... Because — I am sure of it already.”
THE GERM OF MADNESS
ALL his life long he had heard of Saratoga; all his life he had meant to go there some day and see for himself those mid-Victorian splendours which had dazzled the solemn grandparents under whose tutelage he had been reared and educated.
Nursery tales of vast hotels, of upholstered magnificence, had haunted his adolescent and maturer years too long: he must go, contemplate, marvel, be a part of fabled Saratoga, ere he migrated to farther and celestial palaces. Before he put on immortality he must see Saratoga. Ultimate dissolution would be made easier.
And here he was at last, with two weeks’ leave from the office just beginning! Here he was in celebrated and historic Saratoga: in the famous Capital Hotel, seated under the awful majesty of that legendary roof, amid a wilderness of unbelievable furniture, in a vast and shapeless space populated exclusively by old ladies and negro servants of a species long since extinct except in Saratoga and in vaudeville.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1184